‘Black Phone 2’ Is Ambitious, Unwieldy Fun

The matter of recommending Black Phone 2 comes with (appropriately) two simple questions. One: did you like The Black Phone, Scott Derrickson’s 2021 serial killer ghost story with a delightfully evil Ethan Hawke performance? And two: are you a fan of horror sequels that aren’t afraid to get a little weird with it?

If the answer to one or both of those questions is yes, it’ll be easy to enjoy Black Phone 2. Indeed, there is more of everything from the first film: dread-inducing imagery, strong character work, a surprising sense of aesthetics and Ethan Hawke playing against type as a sinister murderer. Yet this isn’t a sequel content with resting on its laurels; even if it’s more unwieldy than its predecessor, Black Phone 2 is committed to raising the stakes in an ambitious way.

The film picks up four years after the original, with Finney (Mason Thames) struggling from the trauma of his experience killing and escaping from The Grabber (Hawke). Meanwhile, his psychic sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) receives mysterious visions where she hears the black phone ringing and the deaths of young children. Their questions lead them to Alpine Lake camp, where their late mother worked as a counselor many years ago. Upon arriving, they rediscover the horrifying truth: The Grabber’s spirit hasn’t moved on, and death is just a word.

One thing that’s noticeable about Black Phone 2 immediately is that it’s a capital-S Sequel; it follows the same cast of characters as they continue to grapple with what happened many years ago. It gives Finney’s previous encounter with The Grabber plenty of weight, making it all the more tense when he does return to haunt the film.

However, the film is hardly a rehash. There are familiar elements to this sequel, but Black Phone 2 is almost entirely different from a structural standpoint as all the characters are in the same space this time, working together to defeat this malicious supernatural force (even if the film is eager to basically confirm that Christianity is real).

Black Phone 2 doesn’t rest on its laurels

It helps that Derrickson evokes a strong sense of place with Alpine Lake camp, an aggressively snowy slice of civilisation in the Colorado wilderness that feels appropriately creepy. The way that he directs Gwen’s visions are especially excellent, harkening back to the terrifying VHS visuals of his previous Ethan Hawke-led horror film Sinister.

Speaking of Hawke, he is devilishly fun once more as The Grabber, with his character given ostensibly more absurd work to do in Black Phone 2. He’s gone from a real person to an evil spirit with sway over the physical world, and both Hawke and Derrickson take full advantage of this with even more creative use of his range of masks in sequences that range from terrifying to occasionally campy (whoever decided The Grabber should be a gun at ice skating, I salute you).

Black Phone 2’s other cast members, both returning and new, are similarly quite good. Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw are excellent as Finney and Gwen, building upon their characters’ experiences in the previous film in a meaningful way. Meanwhile, I was particularly compelled by Demián Bichir’s Armando, the supervisor of Alpine Lake, a character with an exceptionally charming presence.

By virtue of its more supernatural leanings, Black Phone 2 is certainly much less focused than the first film, and at times sillier. Yet that’s what I appreciated most about this sequel; rather than simply repeat what worked, it meaningfully expanded upon its predecessor with a new angle, narrative setup and bone-chilling imagery. It’s hardly a massive breath of fresh air, but Black Phone 2 is a sincerely enjoyable horror sequel – and for me, that was more than enough to enjoy it.

★★★

Black Phone 2 is in cinemas now.